Russian mass media produced the next dose of fakes about snipers on Maidan

TV-channel Russia-1 demonstrated another news item, which is supposed to prove that snipers killing people during the tragic events in February on Maidan were the members of the Right Sector (the news item starts from 1:08:30):

As an argument, journalists adduce a statement of the fugitive former Head of the Ukrainian Security Service Oleksandr Yakimenko, who claims that the shots were being fired from the Philharmonic building, at that time controlled by Maidan supporters under command of Andriy Parubiy. Yakimenko adds that later 20 fighters were seen going out from the Philharmonic with guns.

As a proof, journalists of Russia-1 even demonstrate men going out from some building and allege literally that, “here these men are going out from the Philharmonic building”. At the same time voice-over is thoroughly explaining to the audience that the members of the Right Sector are carrying guns, which they used for killing people, and thermopads, which snipers usually lie on. Besides, in support of Yakimenko’s words, Russia-1 shows Andriy Parubiy, who keeps an eye on the “withdrawal”.

In fact, all these statements are faked. Firstly, here is how the Kyiv Philharmonic looks like:

Secondly, it is situated far and quite aside from the place, where people were being murdered by the sniper’s shots. Besides, there are lots of very high buildings between the Philharmonic and Institutska Street, there is no line-of-site there.

As for the men, who are said to go out from the “Philharmonic building” after shooting at Maidan supporters, they indeed are the members of the Right Sector, however they are going out not from the Philharmonic building, but from the “Dnipro” hotel, which for some time was a headquarter of the Kyiv branch of this organization. Moreover, they were going from there in the end of March, long after the day of shooting on Maidan:

Some people claim that Yakimenko made a mistake in his interview, that in fact he meant not the Philharmonic building, but the Conservatory one, which is situated on Maidan. However, even this supposition doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. There is no line-of-site from the Conservatory, the high building of “Ukraine” hotel stands in a way. This can be seen even on the map used by Russia-1 in its news item:

If you try to look at the Conservatory from the place, where activists were shot, you will see the following:

Therefore, the shots can’t be fired neither from the roof of the Conservatory.

But this is not the end. In this news item Russian-1 mentions again leaked phone conversation between Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet and Catherine Ashton, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs, when Paet allegedly claimed, that people were killed by snipers, acting in favor of the then opposition. In fact, Paet did not say this, he only retell Ashton the version, which he heard from others.

We remind that Russian First channel has recently produced totally faked news item, showing how Ukrainian authorities cut all the trees on Institutska Street in order to conceal evidence of the directions of snipers’ shots. You can watch a detailed exposure of this news item in our 7th videodigest.